


Home in the West

by Suffer Bravely (Shamu)



Category: Smile For Me (Video Game)
Genre: It's actualy Habit / Dallas but there's no tag for that (yet ;) ), M/M, Though that will be later in the fic anyway, cw: animal death, explores: flowers; the cold war; hippies; russian diaspora; the sad story of a small little dog
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:15:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21725122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shamu/pseuds/Suffer%20Bravely
Summary: White is the colour of surrender.-This is a story about me, Dr Boris Habit! You came here wanting to know  about my Lily?...We begin in 1961, a goodday for mankind and a story about small dog. Small is the word, I too am small. But soon, I will be bigstyle, and all will make sense.Three parts, many chapters. Updates Sundays.
Relationships: Dr. Boris Habit & Dallas Smuth, Kamal Bora/Dr. Boris Habit
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. Laika

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Mist & Z. I would never have written this story without either of you. 
> 
> You taught me to surrender. 
> 
> Thank you.

**April 12, 1961**

He was born the year she died; her black and white, doleful expression gazing out from the newspaper clipping his parents kept beneath his bed. The year they launched the first man into space, that holy name on his mother’s lips - Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, that same year he discovered her.

Laika.

Mom dug her out, the big box of clippings too greyscale and boring for him to understand. “It’s history, Boris,” she had said with a grave and serious expression, "someday you will understand." Her cold eyes compelled him to agree.

But, she had soft hands that day. A warmth to her cheeks. No smile - no real smile - but that memory he pocketed deep inside himself. A moment where Mom seemed - was, was happy. 

“Yuri is a brave man, only 27! But did you know, there was another brave one before him. A sacrifice. Boris, you must learn the meaning of sacrifice sooner rather than later.”

She dug deeper in the box, shifting through piles and piles of great blank nothings.

“You want to be like Yuri someday, don’t you? A hero.”

A ‘hero’ was something Boris knew was good - but really, even then, he had answered before he had thought. Before he had to think.

“Yeah! Mom, he made the whole world smile!”

“That’s right, Голубка.”

“So many smiles were given to him Today. Today is a goodday because the whole world is happhy,” Boris grinned, a full set of milk teeth not yet shed. His smile only grew as his mother pulled out a picture of a dog, her shoulders flashing excitement.

“—Ah, yes. Here it is. Look, Boris. Look. Do you know who this is?”

She pointed at the dog’s proud expression, pert ears that flopped only slightly, her face half lost in shadow but her eyes glittering like fresh blueberries.

“No…”

“This is Laika. She was just a street dog. _Muttnik_ ,” she laughed, but it wasn’t a real laugh, it was full of bad feelings. “But she was the first living thing to orbit the Earth.”

“Oh… Laika, doesn’t that mean —?”

“ _Barker_ , yes. _Bark bark bark_ -“ She seized him by the stomach and his lungs forced out a giggle. “Funny name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah!!”

“Well, she was just a street dog, a bastard mutt. Nothing. But she became a hero. Seven days she spent in space, gazing at the Earth - proving that we could do the impossible. That we belong in space.”

The wailing of the rocket filled up his mind, fire and heat and a little dog with smiling pointy white teeth looking out onto that big blank canvas.

“… Can we see her?”

“Ah, Boris, no… Even if we could, she would be in Russia…”

“Anyway, it is our duty to remember those who sacrificed themselves to contribute to the human race.”

He suddenly felt cold, but his mother’s warm face made him happy. Space blocked out all other feelings. That sky that did not stop and the Earth a blue marble glinting in the nothing, all while a little creature saw things beyond its understanding.

“Mom, what do you think she thought when she saw Earth?”

“… Oh, no. Let’s not do the silly questions, Boris. The point is… the Soviet Union sent the first living thing into orbit, and now the Soviet Union have sent the first man into space. It is something to be proud of, no matter what they say to you at school.”

He blinked, eyes rolling up at her, mouth going slack. He wondered what sort of training a dog needed before going into space, a harness tight across her flesh.

“You must remember, we are a nation of sacrifice.”

Laika’s profile blazed from the clipping, her snout pointing proudly.

Bravely.

He thought of running his hand along her forehead, one last pat before she went on her mission.

“…Okay, mom."

—

_Fun Fakt #39_

_To this date, Laika is the only living passenger ever to have been launched into space without the intention of retrieval! Sputnik II, her vessel, had no capability of re-entry._

— 

**Some-time, 1980s**

He took the laughing gas, inhaled it deep into his lungs and in a fit of blinding, blistering euphoria - he saw her. Her head, floating right beside him. Just her head, her mouth curled up in an eternal smile. The shadows still stuck to her face, like the camera had stucked them on her forever and ever. The story that uplifted and horrified him.

Laika.

‘I died a painless death, it didn’t “hurt.” Don’t worry Boris. Do not worry. Do Not Worry. It’s just oxygen deprivation. It’s just 19 seconds.

Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don’t worry Don't worry,” the dog barked.

He chased her all through space, her head like a comet flickering in the dark, the stars curling like lit cigarette ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to read. This work means so much to me: the places the research took me to and the things I discovered about myself while writing. I can only hope it ends up having an impact on you, too! We'll see! Sorry if this is a bit of a slow start 😅
> 
> Parts 1 & 2 of this fic are almost complete, but chapters will be posted on Sundays.
> 
> Any feedback is deeply appreciated.


	2. Spring

**April 3, 1967**

It was spring when everything changed. When the leaves all began to perk up again and the blossom buds opened up in violent triumph. He’d always been fascinated with that. The way that from one sleep the trees nodded with jewelled green buds and then from the next they were weighed down in an explosion of pink and white. Like fireworks on New Years, the sky hung dark and cold, and then alight. 

Just like those fireworks, the blossom’s sticky sweet scent carried everywhere - the wind tainted or blessed depending on your persuasion. And it was spring when the kids began to cycle again. And when the woods burst with flowers. And he’d often sit by the window - the TV sputtering commercial after commercial - watching the world go by. 

So that was where he first saw _him_ \- the ding-ding and creak of his red bicycle changing everything, like blossom bursting forth. Just a whirl of colour. And colour, colour was so rare and precious from within his grey and beige home, always black with winter. Colour, when he saw him on his red bike with his bright blue shirt - an explosion of colour, brighter than the new television, like the waters edge in summer. 

Dad pointed at the swans, but he hadn’t cared for their mass of white. He’d watched the way the water changed, swallowed light and offered up a scattered, scratched version of the world. How his smile seemed wider in the lapping ripples, eyes misaligned. 

But just like the ripples in the water - who passed from one moment jarringly into the next - so too did he disappear; the whoosh of his bike no longer whispered in the air. 

But the next day, the same time - he saw the bike again. 

And the next.

And the next. 

Like a commercial that always came on after his favourite show, familiar and predictable but still announcing itself with the same passionate jingle over and over. An explosion of sound, completely unaware that this was his fifth time viewing, his fiftieth. But unlike the commercial, whose jingles faded desensitised into the soundscape of his mind, that bike and that azure shirt and that boy with skin a flash of brown never left his mind. 

—

He waited until his parents left the house for work - the last murmur of their voices and the click of their keys fading into morning light. He would meet the boy, he was determined of it. Dogtooth lilies were in bloom down in the woods - earlier than most other lilies. A pioneer, with bulbs beneath the earth that resembled Laika’s grinning canines. Maybe, when her ship disintegrated as it returned into Earth’s atmosphere, her teeth scattered and bloomed. That’s what he thought anyway, as he scooped the flowers - bulb and all - into a paper bag.

He would sell these - just a nickel, a dime maybe - on Saturdays when he would take out his own brown bike with the little basket that once belonged to his mother’s. Dad was in two minds about it, but it wasn’t like he was around much to see it anyway. And besides - he liked the jingle of the coins which spoke to him at night of the American go-get-‘em spirit that had finally, finally washed itself into his son’s bones. 

So, that Saturday, the sky was open and clear, the a sun an eye peering curiously at what would unfold. He got his bike ten minutes before the boy would arrive, like clockwork - and when he did appear, that streak of stolen sky, he cycled after him. 

“Hey!”

Dinging his bell, the boy ahead glanced over his shoulder - eyes widening in a flash before cycling faster. 

“I said heyyyy!!” He yelled, louder this time. “Don’t you want to see what I have for you, pally-pal?!”

The boy on the bike wheeled wildly, glancing over his shoulder again and his voice returned in a high pitched squeak, like Mr. Mouse.

“I.. W-what are you talking about!?” 

Boris cycled harder, flanking the boy.

“I got something for you. Something good. Something sure to make you smile.”

“Umm,, okay! That’s—”

The boy swerved suddenly, bike careening towards the grass.

“—that’s really weird and you’re getting in my way and I don’t know who you are!” 

“We’re neigh-bours!” Boris explained.

“Neighbours?!”

“Yeah!” 

The boy finally put the brakes on as he skidded over the grass still wet with morning’s dew. Slowing to a stop, he slammed his foot down into the tangle of green, gasping for breath as he searched Boris’s face for any kind of recognition. 

“I see you sometimes - all the time. You come by on your bicycle so very quickly. I never thought I would catch you.” 

Boris stopped his bike by the grass, not wanting to crush it. Stepping off his bike, he held it by the path - staring at the boy. 

“Uhh… So. You want to catch me? Like, like a hunter? Mom… she tells me about the hunters round these parts. You don’t have a big gun, do you? Or a bow? Or something else dangerous?”

Boris looked at himself, squinting at his shoes. 

“Nope, nothing dangerous about me. Except my teeth, maybe. Dad is always saying they’ll get me into trouble if I don’t stop yapping them.” 

“… Uhh, ha-ha?”

The boy’s face was so different up close, so detailed and alive, the veins in his neck raised and flushed - like the difference between a field in bloom and a flower in the windowsill. His teeth were straight but hung down like an overbite ‘cause he kept chewing his lip. 

“So,,, come closer! Come closer! I have something to give you. Do you know what it is yet? You should have a guess.” He mimicked his mother, leaning in close to his face, her eyelashes brushing against his forehead. “Guess, guess, guess!”

The boy shook his head.

“I’m bad at guesses, and I don’t really like surprises. At all.” 

“Well fine! Come closer and I’ll tell you all about ‘it’,” he said, flicking a hand into the air, his other keeping the bike steady. “No surprisers necessary.” 

The boy seemed to weigh up his options, like a rabbit deciding if it should run into the headlights. 

“…. Fine. Okay.” 

As he wheeled his bike over to Boris, he smiled. 

“Are you rrreeeady?”

“Yes! Yes, okay! I thought you said there weren’t going to be any surprises? Just tell me already! Uh, please?” 

Boris smiled, reaching into the paper bag - the boy’s eyes stretching further, pupils widening like a goat’s. 

“It’ss….. a gift, from me to you!” Pulling the lily out the bag, he smiled up at the boy, his mouth shining with his full-set of new big-teeth. 

“Uhhh..?!” The boy seemed taken aback, glancing at it and then at Boris. “What?!”

“It’s a lily! It means ‘friendship’. It means I want to be your friend!” Shoving it towards the boy’s face, he let him get a good ol’ sniff. 

There was a long, long pause as the boy seemed to take it all in. Or maybe he was just taking his time to think about the sniff, Boris wasn’t sure. Regardless, his face split into a pretty smile - a wavy wiggly mouth that made his eyes wavy and wiggly too, sweet laughter slipping out from the gap between his teeth and his lip. 

“Ohh man! That’s… That’s cool. Uhh… my name actually means Lily, so that’s cool I guess. Uh, well, kind of. It can mean water lily - or lotus, I guess. Hey, are you into flowers? Is there a difference? Between normal lilies and water lilies and lotuses?”

Boris nodded enthusiastically, his eyes shimmering, before—

“Um, sorry, that’s weird —”

“No! It’s OKay! I can tell you……. But first, you have to take it.” 

“Oh, yeah - right! Sorry, I just… was thinking too much, I guess,” the boy, Lily, he took the flower and cradled it under his arm.

“Think away! And think of it this way,” Boris laughed, “You took it, so this means we’re friends, rrriiighhtt?”

Lily’s teeth were back on his bottom lip again, but his top lip at least curled up into a teeny-tiny smile.

“I mean, if you say so, I guess?” 

“You guessed right! Well done!” 

—

_Fun Fakt #3_

_Water dogtooth lily as needed throughout the growing season, then decrease water after blooming. Usually, one deep watering per week is plenty._

_Don’t be tempted to remove foliage after dogtooth lily stops blooming. In order to produce flowers the following year, the bulbs require food created when energy is absorbed by the leaves. Wait until the leaves die down and turn yellow._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dogtooth lilies exist in real life & they look identical to the tooth lily you can grow in-game. The yellow variety is found all throughout the Eastern states - coincidentally where we find a lot of Russian emigration post-WW2. I haven't settled on which state Habit has grown up in as of yet, but this is set in the east coast.
> 
> Thank you for reading once again. I think this chapter has a little more life to it & I have so much fun writing Lily. I hope you enjoy!


End file.
